


Hunter's Moon

by subversivegrrl



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subversivegrrl/pseuds/subversivegrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dixon boys, before the ZA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunter's Moon

He had learned early that you couldn't depend on anyone but yourself. Even the people who should have loved you, who should never hurt you, who claimed to be looking out for your best interests... even they let you down. Sometimes it was the booze, and then the beatings. Sometimes it was just because they weren't there when you needed them. So it was best not to need them at all. 

His momma tried to tell him that God watched over them, but Daryl couldn’t see where God was paying much attention to the Dixon family. If he was, he must be a cold-hearted bastard, to just watch and not lend a hand.

Pretty much as soon as he was old enough to be out of the house by himself, he’d started spending all of his free time in the forest near the house. In those increasingly rare periods when his older brother was out of juvie, he’d tag along when Merle went hunting, learning to move silently among the pines, stalking the small game that was so plentiful there.

It was Merle who taught him to shoot - first a small recurve bow; later, when his hands and arms had grown stronger, a crossbow. Still later there would be guns, but they were so damned noisy; the low thrum of the bow didn’t shatter the peace he found in the woods.

Merle made sure he knew always to shoot to kill, drilled into him how important it was not to leave a wounded animal to suffer, and if he missed a kill he could be sure Merle would hound him along the trail of his target until they found it and put it out of its misery. His brother swore their daddy had taught him that, and Daryl was left wondering why the old man wouldn’t do the same kindness for his own kin. 

Eventually Merle was gone, in state prison for long stretches. Merle wasn’t much of a planner, nor one to put up with the grind of a regular job, and there always seemed to be someone around to tempt him into chasing some new scheme, some easy score that would go inevitably, badly wrong. 

With Merle out of the picture, their daddy’s open-handed slaps became fists, and the fists gave way to belts, boards, bottles, whatever the man’s hand came to when he was in a rage. When Daryl showed up at school wearing yet another shiner, moving like he was eighty years old from the bruises and welts on his body, his teachers wouldn't meet his eyes, ashamed of their own weakness. The few tentative inquiries were met with snarls, and were not repeated. He developed a reputation for a quick and violent temper. He didn't date - no "nice girl" wanted to be seen in his company, and the ones who were more Merle's type made Daryl’s stomach turn. He grew a hard shell made of leather and grease, hand-rolled cigarettes and disappointment and grief.

******************  
He dropped out of school as soon as it was legal. Merle was temporarily unincarcerated, and without talking too much about it they both moved into a ratty old trailer outside of town that was owned by the mother of one of Merle’s drinking buddies. The place hadn’t been kept up in years, but that was pretty much perfect for them. It’s not like they were doing much entertaining, at least not the kind of folks who might care what kind of couch they passed out on.

Daryl mostly kept a job, wrenching on cars in someone’s shop, driving truck from time to time, loading stock, physical kinds of stuff that burned off a lot of his anger and let him sleep nights, but every so often someone would push him too hard, usually some foreman or boss, and he would blow a gasket, ending up out on the pavement again. Merle spent his days sleeping, his nights partying and dealing dope and doing small crimes and spinning dreams about that big score that would put him in clover. 

Together they blew off steam in crappy bars, drinking cheap whiskey and beating the shit out of anyone who crossed either one. Somehow Daryl managed never to kill anyone, never did any real time, although he warmed a cot in the county jail more than a few nights. Merle cut some guy one night who turned out to be a banker’s kid, and he was gone again. They didn’t even bother with a trial that time, just laid out a deal and packed him away. The kid had lived, though, so chances were good that Merle would be coming home again, sometime.

******************

They were together the day the world started to end, and Daryl thought maybe that might mean there was a God out there, after all. Merle wasn’t easy, and he could be a vicious son of a bitch, but there was no one else Daryl could think of who he’d rather have beside him now.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no real idea where this is going, but it's been bubbling around in my brain for a while and wanted to come out into the light.


End file.
